Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Over the past three weeks, I have received numerous calls from farmers in Sligo-Leitrim, north Roscommon and south Donegal who are suffering severe hardship as they try to provide fodder for their stock. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Michael Creed, brought in a scheme to subsidise hay and silage but the hay went up by €8 per bale and the silage by €12 so it was no benefit to farmers at all. It is a health issue for many people and I am calling for farmers to be front-loaded by €1,000 to help them to survive and to feed their families and their stock over the next month. Farmers in the part of the country I come from have been feeding their cattle in these conditions for the past eight months. They will get the money anyway but it would make a lot of difference if they got it now.

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